2013 Leadership Institute Special Guest

Alan K. Simpson served for 13 years in the Wyoming House of Representatives and was a U.S. senator from 1978-1997. A native of Cody, Wyoming, he is from a political family: his father, Milward L. Simpson, served both as governor of Wyoming and as U.S. senator from Wyoming. While in the Senate, Alan Simpson served on the Judiciary Committee (author of the Immigration Reform and Control Act), Finance Committee, Veterans Affairs Committee (chairman), Special Committee on Aging, and Environment and Public Works Committee (cosponsor of the Clean Air Act). Simpson has been a champion for the National Endowment for the Arts. During the "culture wars" of the 1990s, he led several efforts to secure bipartisan support for the agency in Congress.

Simpson has been director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a visiting lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of Wyoming. He is a partner in the Cody and Denver firms of Simpson, Kepler and Edwards, the Cody division of the Denver firm of Burg Simpson Eldredge, Hersh & Jardine, PC. He serves on numerous nonprofit boards, including as trustee emeritus of the Grand Teton Music Festival (Jackson) and chairman emeritus of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody). His book, Right in the Old Gazoo: A Lifetime of Scrapping with the Press (1997, William Morrow Company), chronicles his personal experiences and views of the fourth estate.

Simpson has narrated audio books and orchestral works, including the Suite from The Reivers, by renowned composer and conductor John Williams; Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait; Gustav Holst's The Planets: A Symphonic Film; and Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.

Wyoming Arts Council THANKS! Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources THANKS! WESTAF THANKS! National Museum of Wildlife Art THANKS! Dancers' Workshop THANKS! The William D. Weiss Donor Advised Fund of the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole THANKS! Bruce Richardson and Susan Stanton THANKS! National Endowment for the Arts THANKS!